David Berlind of ZDNet says the time has come for small and medium businesses to outsource their IT operations: "Call me crazy. But, it seems to me that the industry has finally evolved to a point where selling infrastructure (including storage) to SMBs should be like selling regular gasoline to the driver of a truck that runs on diesel fuel. Whether you're at an existing SMB or about to start one up, it makes almost no sense to insource any IT. Especially IT infrastucture like servers and storage." Nicholas Carr agrees: "I would call it more a habit than a myth - the ability for companies to jettison most or all of their in-house IT infrastructure is a recent development - but I think he's right. Ironically, even as many smaller companies are embracing hardware hosting, software-as-a-service, and other forms of utility computing, many others are currently building up their IT assets, drawn by low component costs. I think those companies are going to end up regretting a lot of the investments they're making. They'll soon find that the highest IT costs aren't component costs but labor costs, maintenance costs, electricity costs, and other secondary expenses - and that owning your own gear ends up reducing your flexibility rather than increasing it." With the proliferation of hosted storage, hosted email, hosted Web sites, hosted project management tools, hosted time tracking utilities, hosted calendars and hosted billing services, should a small business owner forget about ever purchasing a server?
